


You can hear me?!

by SherlockMalfoy



Series: my harry potter crackfics & unfinished tales [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Ginny Bashing, Morally Gray Harry Potter, One-Sided Attraction, Soulmate AU, Unrequited Crush, bad!Dumbledore, love potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 12:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17918588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockMalfoy/pseuds/SherlockMalfoy
Summary: After a potions accident, Harry Potter lays unconscious in the hospital wing. That's not all that unusual in the life of Potter... At least, not until his disembodied voice starts stalking a certain repentant Death Eater spy around...(Unfinished. Will not continue. General "here's where i was going with it" in the end notes. Underage only because Harry is under 18, but there's not even kisses.)





	You can hear me?!

All anyone knew was that Harry had been in a potions accident during class.

Slughorn was quite surprised, but Hermione wasn't. Not after Draco lobbed something into Harry's cauldron when he thought no one was looking.

Nothing worked to wake him, and he had been stuck like this for the entire Winter break. Poppy did her best to make him comfortable. And what friends of his that had stayed at the castle for the holiday came by to visit.

Even specialists from St. Mungoes came by but... nothing.

Nothing until the return feast when everyone had come back to the castle and a voice rang out, clear as day in the Great Hall suddenly-

"Canary yellow and electric blue? With those shoes? No wonder people seem to always agree with the bastard. One look at him and all they can do is smile and nod until they go bloody blind!"

A hush fell over the four Houses.

"If I get asked if I want a lemon sherbet one more fucking time I swear I'll hex his beard off."

Giggles started up and swept the hall.

When Snape glanced down the table, the headmaster was indeed wearing canary yellow and electric blue... and with open toe neon pink sandals and green socks...

 

No one could explain how or why Potter's disembodied voice was suddenly heard in the great hall during meal times. The fifth time it happened, Miss Lovegood had politely asked Harry how the Nargles were doing. And his answer was-

"Holy fuck you can hear me?!"

 

He could only be heard in three places.

The Great Hall.

The Infirmary.

Severus Snape's defense classroom.

When Hermione had pointed this out to the voice of her best friend, he figured it was because he spent the most time in those places before the accident.

No one wanted to ask why he'd been spending so much time in Snape's classroom - or when he'd been doing that.

 

Snape was levitated into the infirmary late one night with his arms and legs still twitching.

"Cruciatis," Harry's voice said softly, as if right beside the matron's ear. "I'd know those symptoms anywhere. Probably under for a full minute, maybe two. Ask Gilly to get a potion from his personal stash. She'll know which one."

For the rest of the night after Poppy summoned the house elf and did as Harry had told her, the sleeping boy's voice was silent.

 

Harry's voice was silent for days. Snape recovered and returned to teaching duties.

Then, one day when the sixth year Gryffindor and Slytherins were in attendance and Snape, in his usual way slammed open the door and strode into the room with his robes billowing... they heard it.

"Damn that's hot. Have you seen yourself professor?" Harry's voice said nice and clear. "Sod what everyone else says. Greasy dungeon bat my left arse cheek. Sex on legs is what that is. And that voice..."

There were no more defense classes that day.

 

Professor Slughorn was at a loss.

The Headmaster was rather worried.

Minerva was very concerned about the things she'd been hearing whenever she was in the Great Hall and Professor Snape were to walk in. Said professor had moved his classes to another classroom, his personal quarters as well, would send his potions to the infirmary by way of the Hogwarts house elves, and refused to take meals in the Great Hall, opting for the kitchens themselves.

It was at the latest staff meeting that they learned he'd stopped going to the kitchens when he'd sat down to have his breakfast only to be accosted by Potter's voice once more.

The last words they heard out of the man near the end of the staff meeting was "Potions got him into this mess, and potions will get him back out of it. I cannot take this... this..... this unwanted attention any longer!"

 

Every weekend was spent in his personal lab trying to find an antidote. He had scrutinized every memory from every student in the class that day. He had analyzed skin, hair, blood, even nail and saliva samples given to him from Poppy.

But there was nothing to be done.

As days ticked by and weeks were marked out, still there was no cure for Harry Potter's ailment in sight.

Until...

"You know, Professor," came Harry's voice just after Snape had finished bottling his latest experimental batch of potion to wake him. "You could ask for memories from my friends of that day. Ron wouldn't have noticed a damn thing, but Hermione might. She was at the table behind me, you know."

"Why are you here, Potter? Don't you have other rooms to haunt?"

"I... I used to sneak in here sometimes to get away from everyone," the voice said quietly. "No one would dare look for me in your private lab. I never touched anything though. Just sat in the corner to think."

"I have been in and out of here since you have fallen unconscious Potter. Why are you only now bringing the fact I cannot escape you even here now?"

He was met with silence. The silence stretched on and Snape realized Potter wasn't going to respond.

 

Another potion failure.

Potter didn't even twitch.

A month and a half had gone by since Snape had started brewing.

And it had been another two weeks since Harry Potter's disembodied voice spoke to anyone at all. The last anyone had heard him had been Snape in his private potions lab. Though no one else knew that.

His friends tried everything they could think of, but nothing worked.

Not until Snape was passing by the former Defense classroom to hear uncontrollable sobbing and a soft, dreamy voice. He stopped by the door which had been left slightly ajar and listened.

"It's... I hate it! I HATE IT!" he heard Harry shouting. "I can't- Everything is so clear. I can see everything and I can't do anything about it! I... I finally understand how you see the world, Luna. It's madness and it's wild and... and..."

"It's alright Harry. I'm glad you understand. But I'm sorry it's hurting you so."

A choked sob. "It's not... Gods above I... I can't control myself like this. It's like everything that used to let me bite my tongue, hold in it, let me fucking think before I spoke - it's all gone. I've got no way to filter my thoughts from my words and- I'm even more of a freak than I used to be and I just want to take it all back and I can't and I... Promise me, when I wake up, if I wake up, you'll obliviate me. Or have Hermione do it. Hell, have the headmaster do it I don't care anymore. I don't want to remember how much it hurts."

"Harry you know I can't do that. I could never do that to you. This happened for a reason."

"He hates me," Harry's voice said. "For fucks sake he literally moved his classroom and chambers just so I won't bother him anymore. He stopped going to meals. Won't set foot in the kitchens. He even has house elves take his potions to the bloody infirmary because he can't stand to even hear me, to know I'm there even though he can't bloody see me!"

The windows rattled and a bookshelf fell over as Harry shouted. "Not like he ever saw ME in the first place! No, all ANYONE sees when they look at me is James Fucking Potter!"

"Harry..."

"Please, Luna. Promise me... Promise me that if I wake up, you'll have someone wipe my memory of this. Please... I don't want to remember how gorgeous and perfect his magic and his soul is. Not when he hates me so much. Not when my magic, my very being just... just sings when he's in the room. It burns right in my core."

"I won't interfere with that Harry. I can't. The strings of fate-"

"Fuck fate! Fate is cruel and hateful and loves to torture me!" Another bookshelf fell, and a desk blew apart. Though Luna threw up a shield in time to avoid being hit with debris. "It was fate that drove my father to torment him!" Another desk exploded. "Fate that pushed him to Voldemort!" Another desk, and a chair with it. "Fate that put MY soulmate in the pub that night!" Harry's voice screamed in rage. "And it was fate that once again put me like this and is torturing me with what I can never have!"

One by one the remaining bookshelves toppled and the windows shattered.

When the dust settled and there was nothing more that could be destroyed, Luna dropped her shield. "Harry?... Harry are you alright? Are you still here?"

"I have to die you know. Neither can live while the other survives. Maybe... maybe it's all for the best really," the boy's voice said with a hint of resignation, despite the hint of tears in it. "It will be easier to celebrate my death instead of mourning it. At least knowing he wouldn't have to put up with any more Potters might finally put a smile on his face."

"If Professor Snape ever smiled I think that might be the day the world ends."

Not wishing to hear anymore, the potions master left the door and returned to his quarters to think.

 

Hermione had watched her best friend's body on the bed as it had cried for the last hour.

His face twitched, and tears streamed down the sides of his face from the corners of his eyes. They would not stop.

When she had asked Madame Pomfrey about it, the woman had sighed and handed her some tissue. "It started a few weeks ago," the kindly older woman had said. "I cannot figure out why, as he hasn't come back to speak with me. All we can do is be here and comfort him as best as we can. And clean him up after of course."

"There has to be something we can do," Hermione said as she had wiped the tears from her friend's face.

 

Research. That's what Hermione had done. Lots and lots of research. It hadn't been hard to get a pass for the restricted section. She even told the truth, for once, when she went to her head of house for one. All she'd said was "It's for Harry," and Professor McGonogall wrote her two. Just in case she lost one, or needed help from a friend.

Twice she had been approached by Professor Snape who, after she thought about the encounters, had asked her in what passed as a courteous manner if he could review her memories of the class in question. And of the day, at least when she was with Potter, leading up to it.

Knowing how hard the man was working to help her friend, even if he couldn't stand the boy, she did not refuse him. The more people working on a solution the better.

 

After viewing the memories of Miss Granger, and once more watching the one he had forced his godson to give him of that class, Severus found himself pondering what tests to run on the samples he had been given in the latest batch from the infirmary.

Having watched Potter in Granger's memories of the day of the accident, he seemed... off. He had suspicions but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

So he turned instead once again to the potion they had been working on in the class that day. He stroked his chin in thought as he mentally scanned the list he had memorized before frowning. The heather bark Draco had tossed into Potter's cauldron should have rendered the potion inert. Explosive, yes, but ineffective.

Instead...

Severus looked at the pensieve again. "Potter changed the recipe." It was a simple explanation with far reaching consequences. Potter, he knew, was absolutely rubbish at potions. A great deal of that was, of course, his own fault. The boy showed potential but lacked confidence and motivation in the subject. But he had proven with Professor Slughorn that he can in fact follow instructions... Just not the teacher's instructions.

As improbable as his conclusion was, it could be the only conclusion. Only Severus himself used valerian root rather than the leaves in Dreamless Sleep. And he had clearly seen the root on Potter's workstation in Granger and Draco's memories, though the boy's textbook was blurry and covered with sheets of parchment.

Severus was also the only one in Britain who added chamomile flowers in place of lavender buds. A change that would cause heather bark, which made lavender inert but enhanced chamomile's calming effects...

He summoned a house elf with a frown. The change in recipe still did not explain why the boy had yet to wake. The addition of heather bark merely should have enhanced the potency and given the size of the bark that had been used Potter's state should have lasted twenty-four to thirty-six hours instead of the standard eight.

"Jigry comes when Master Professor Snape calls. What is it Jigry can do today sir?" the house elf squeaked after bowing when it popped into the lab.

He wrote out a note and handed it over, finding writing his request was much easier with the house elves than to do what the headmaster usually did and instruct them to do so orally. The wretched creatures usually mucked it up in the process. "Take this note to Madame Pomfrey and wait for a reply."

The elf took the parchment and popped out of the lab.

Severus contemplated the samples again. Depending on what the woman placed in the list he requested, he would decide how to proceed.

When the elf reappeared twenty minutes later with a scroll of parchment longer than he had anticipated, he read it over carefully. It was not merely a list of potions, but of the reasons why the obnoxious boy was on them in the first place.

"Elf, why have I been given this scroll?"

"Mistress Madame Matron says as Potion Master yous have permission to sees any students records. She tells Jigry that yous being yous that yous see a list and think Mister Harry Potter sir is liar. Yous needs to be seeing the whys." The house elf was wringing its hands and shifting it's weight nervously from foot to foot before it started to tug at its ears.

He drew in a deep, slow breath and nodded. "That will be all. Thank you."

She was right, of course.

If he had seen his own high potency pain killer, the one he used only after returning from Death Eater meetings, on a list for Harry Potter's regular medications at the high dose the boy regularly seemed to take then he certainly would have assumed the worst of the boy. But to see it written out so clearly... that the boy was tortured as much, if not more so, as Severus himself due to his link to the Dark Lord...

That was one small blessing for Potter in all of this. The boy felt no pain from the Dark Lord while in his bizarre comatose yet still astrally conscious state.

He looked over the list again and began ticking off things that would and would not counteract against the particular version of Dreamless Sleep the boy had been brewing that day.

 

Hermione usually had the after dinner slot to visit with Harry. She often took this time to read to him, knowing that his mind was still active because he had appeared, sort of, around the castle and fully aware of his surroundings.

However on this particular night...

"Go to the infirmary. Now."

His voice was low, as if whispered in her ear part way through dinner. It was the first, that she knew, anyone had heard him in weeks. She grabbed two slices of bread and put the remainder of her roast between them, then wrapped it in a napkin.

"Where're you going all of a sudden?" Ron asked from across the table.

"I just got an idea and need to research it while it's fresh in my mind."

"The library... You don't need help, do you?"

"No. It's fine," she said, even as Harry's voice whispered to her again to hurry before it was too late.

She picked up her bag and hurried from the Great Hall. The sandwich was shoved into one of the side pockets for later as she started to run.

 

Severus couldn't believe his eyes when the small cauldron with Potter's blood sample turned pink.

He had only tested it on a hunch after spotting a box of unwanted chocolates in Granger's memory. A box of chocolates that Potter had immediately binned after seeing who they were from with a remark about "Another poisoned batch from Romilda."

He had heard of what happened to the Weasley boy, of course. Horace went on and on about it at the time. The poisoned bottle being uncovered all because Weasley ate the chocolates some bint had left on Potter's bed. Chocolates infused with a love potion.

But to actually see that the results were pink. That the boy was under the influence of not just a common love potion bought in Knockturn or even that bloody Weasley joke shop in Diagon Alley... but Amortentia?!

Oh yes, that would react badly with a hyper-potent Dreamless Sleep. Especially if the boy had the very potent anti-cruciatis painkiller still in his system. Quickly he went to his personal stores and sought out the ingredients for the antidote. It would need to be rather strong, all things considered. But once it was flushed from the boy's system he should begin to show signs of waking.

 

Ginny Weasley dropped the eyedropper when the doors of the hospital wing burst open. She nearly dropped the small brown bottle in her hand as well, though thankfully managed to hang onto it without losing any more of its contents.

"What in the name of Merlin do you think you're doing?!" Hermione shouted at her as she crossed the vast space between the doors and Harry's bed.

"It's vitamins," she said, realizing Hermione had seen the dropper and bottle.

The frizzy haired girl frowned, her head tilted as if listening to something before the frown was replaced with a look of anger. "Don't you lie to me Ginevra Molly Weasley! What's really in that bottle!"

It was at the sound of raised voices that Madame Pomfrey came out of her office to chastise the two girls for their behavior. But it was at the sight of an unmarked potion bottle and a discarded eyedropper laying on Harry Potter's chest that she stopped and pulled her wand.

The bottle was summoned out of the girl's hand, followed by the dropper. The school matron took one sniff of the bottle before capping it with the dropper. "You are in serious trouble, Miss Weasley," she said.

Hermione was a quick draw with her wand, petrifying the redhead after she managed only a few feet away from the boy in the bed.

"Thank you, Miss Granger. I'll take it from here."

"Why would she be giving him..."

"Because she's obsessed with me. She's only with Dean to make me jealous, you know. And Dean's only with her to upset Zabini. It's a weird love triangle. Though it has been pretty amusing to watch."

After that, Harry went silent again. Hermione watched as Madame Pomfrey levitated Ginny into one of the private rooms, locking and warding the girl inside after canceling the petrification spell.

She sighed and sat in the chair that was kept at Harry's bedside for his friends. At least she'd thought enough to wrap up the remnants of her dinner and bring it with her.

 

Madame Pomfrey wasn't surprised that Professor Snape had the antidote to Amortentia ready before she even asked for it. Though she was surprised when the man himself arrived to deliver it instead of sending it with a house elf.

He insisted on administering it himself, and it was only after she learned the extent of the daily dosing the boy had been subjected to did she acquiesce to his request. Rather than administer with drops orally, he simply spelled the entire contents of the bottle into the boy's stomach and waited.

And they waited.

Friends of Potter came and went, though they tended to leave quickly when it was clear that Snape wasn't leaving his place at the end of Potter's bed. Eventually the professor sat in a chair, but he did not leave the end of the bed.

After a full twenty-four hours, Potter still did not wake.

Snape would have remained for another twelve hours, had it not been for the fact he was still a teacher at the school and those duties called his attention away.

 

"Harry," said the dreamy voice at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. "Do you know why you still haven't woken up?"

Severus had paused at the sound of the girl's voice and secreted himself and his ingredients basket in the dark of the trees.

"I dunno," was the boy's reply. "I mean, when I look at my body I can see the difference now that Ginny's not drugging me."

"Yes. The sickly gray film is gone now."

"Then why haven't I woken up? I saw Snape's notes. None of what's left in my body should be causing this."

"Maybe it's because you're not IN your body," Luna said as she plucked a flower from the ground to add to the bundle in her hands.

Severus heard Potter sigh. "If I knew how to get back in the bloody thing don't you think I'd done it by now."

"Not really," was the dreamy reply as the girl sat where she was, her skirt flaring out around her as she dropped the bundle into her lap and began to weave the stems together. "In this state, you're free. No classes. No homework. No You-Know-Who." She shrugged. "Since you don't need to sleep, there's no visions. No pain."

"No Dursleys."

"That, too," she said softly. The girl and Potter's disembodied voice went silent, and stayed that way for a while before Snape decided they weren't going to speak again and turned to go.

Then, almost too quiet for him to hear, Potter's voice said, "Luna. I'm scared."

"I know Harry," the girl said.

"I don't want to die."

She nodded her understanding and continued to weave.

"If we win... will you do something for me?"

"Of course Harry. Unless you ask me to obliviate you again. I don't think that works on corpses," she replied, the dreamy quality of her voice making her words more unsettling than they really needed to be.

The boy's voice laughed. "No. Nothing like that. There's going to be a lot of parties. And celebrating going on after he's gone. If we win, will you make sure they put me with my parents? I don't even know where they're buried, but I want to be with them."

"I will."

"And... the Map. Make sure you get the map. I left something for you in it. A... a thank you for last year. I meant to share it with you at Christmas but then Malfoy..."

"Thank you Harry. Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll enjoy it when you show it to me."

"That's not going to happen. When I wake up, if I wake up... I've got a job to do. A destiny to fulfill. It's my fate."

"As you so eloquently tell me frequently, fuck fate."

"Luna! You kiss Neville with that mouth?!"

The girl smiled. "Oh, that wasn't for you, Harry," she said while holding up her finished flower crown and rising to her bare, dirt covered feet. Her face lit up in a smile as she twirled, her skirt billowing around her before settling when she stopped to place the crown upon her head.

Severus stepped further back into the shadows of the trees as she lifted her face and stared straight at him.

"And I haven't kissed Neville yet. That happens next year."

"You should probably head back... we've been out here for a long time. Dinner should be coming up soon."

She smiled at her hiding professor before turning away and starting back towards the castle, her voice loud and chipper. "I hope they have apples. I like to eat them when I read muggle fairy tales."

 

Up in his tower, stroking his beard in time with his troubled thoughts sat Albus Dumbledore.

The longer Harry Potter lay in his strange magical coma the more troubled he became. This was in no small part to the fact that Headmaster Dumbledore had not been entirely straightforward with young Mr. Potter in regards to his part to play in the war.

And now, he had heard rumours that Harry now knew that he would not survive to see the end. Yes there was the bit in the prophecy that stated that both he and Tom could only die by one another's hand, but he had been prepared to work with that. He had decided to give the boy some hope. Something to cling to until the final moment. Something to believe in until Severus did his duty and told the boy the last crucial message to ensure he did the right thing for the greater good.

Whatever form the boy's magic gave to his conscious mind, it had blown holes into all of his carefully laid plans miles wide. The fact that whatever ethereal plane the boy existed upon allowed him to see the truth and afforded a clarity that in the waking world he could never have had...

Dim blue eyes looked down at his blackened, shriveled hand. Not even Fawkes could wake the boy, and he had tried desperately. Once at his master's behest, but all the other times because the phoenix truly cared for him and wished to see him well again.

Albus had only been gifted with his invisible presence privately twice. Once to ask him if he knew what was going on and why this had happened to him.

The other... The other to tear his office apart in a blinding rage, ripping through any words of advice and comfort Albus might have offered. Instead the boy had railed at him for the lies and the years of tests and abuse he had endured, and he had cursed the very air the old man breathed, blaming him for his parent’s deaths. Deaths that, now that he knew the truth, could have been prevented if the Potters had gone to Potter Manor rather than the cottage in Godric's Hollow.

Harry's last words to him in private still rattled through his mind, weighing his old bones further.

"You're the one who whispered in Dippet's ear about how Tom Riddle was poison. You could have saved him from the orphanage. But instead you fostered his darkness and created Voldemort... If I ever wake up you'd better pray I don't remember any of this. Because if I do I can guarantee you that history will repeat itself."

That had been over a month ago, and it had taken him more than a day to get his office back in order.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is unfinished and will not be continued. What you see is what you get.
> 
> Where I was going with this concept: a vague Snow White/Sleeping Beauty type of situation with Snape as "Prince Charming" and Harry as the "damsel in distress" that needs saving. Luna knows all because come on, it's Luna. Harry's soul/consciousness is trapped due to the combination of potions he was being slipped and the one that blew up all over him in class making a pseudo-Draught of Living Death that not only requires the correct antidotes, but also "true love's kiss" or rather, the kiss of his soulmate. While on the astral plane, Harry cannot interact with things unless he is extremely angry or upset, in which case he is able to lash out with his magic, which is free of the horcrux's influence and all other outside factors while he is in such a state.  
> On this other plane of existence, Harry can see the world as Luna sees it normally. They bond over this. He is also able to see clearly for the first time who his real friends are and who they aren't. Because he's not bound by normal space-time he is able tap into other things, such as the consciousness of Hogwarts, which spills to him Dumbledore's dark secrets. He also spends a lot of his time just admiring Snape's aura and his magic, which is completely at odds with the face Snape presents to the world.  
> Over the course of the story, while Snape wouldn't develop any romantic feelings towards Harry, he would begin to thaw a bit and understand more about the real Harry rather than the version of the boy he has built up in his head all these years. And he would have worked through some (but not all) of his issues with James Potter as he tried to come up with any possible way to avoid having to kiss Harry in order to wake him. There would have been a lot of trial and error before finally, reluctantly, and under protest - Snape would have had to snog him. Not just a quick peck, but a proper snog. After which Harry wakes up, remembering everything that's happened in his astral vacation, but pretending that he doesn't because he knows Snape doesn't return his feelings and he himself has his "duty" to deal with Voldemort. Harry secretly vowing that if they both survived the war to come, then he would find Snape again and admit that he remembers everything from that time. Hermione tries to "get Harry to remember" while Ron is like "dude, really, you don't want to know what it was like hearing you say THINGS about the greasy git!" and Luna would remain Harry's one true confidante.  
> The very very end of the story would have been at least 10 years post-war, with Harry standing in a cemetery, talking to a headstone and there would have been clues that this was a regular habit of his. The particular story he would be telling on this visit would be alluded to, and it would be "that time Malfoy ruined my potion in class and I had an out of body experience for months". Someone approaches and Harry looks up, smiles and says, "Oh, hello sexy legs. It's been a while." The reveal is it's Snape, who's come holding a bouquet of lilies for his visit to Lily Potter's grave on her birthday.  
> Story is left open-ended as to what happens after.
> 
> And that's it. That's where I was going with that.


End file.
